Suit seeks compensation for Einstein papers lost in Lick fire

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A detail from a copy of mathematical equations written by Albert Einstein. Dan Straus has property in a remote area near Henry W. Coe State Park east of Morgan Hill. During the huge Lick fire of 2007, Straus begged and pleaded with firefighters - he just had to get up to his land before the fire ravaged his family heirlooms. At stake weren't just personal belongings, but something far more historically precious that did end up burning to a crisp -- 42 pages of calculations scribbled by his father's colleague at Princeton, Albert Einstein. Now Straus, a chemistry professor at San Jose State University, is seeking reimbursement for the irreplaceable papers, appraised at $250,000 to $400,000. He's suing the woman convicted of starting the fire, schoolteacher Margaret Pavese.(Photo by Patrick Tehan/Mercury News)

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A detail from a copy of mathematical equations written by Albert Einstein. Dan Straus has property in a remote area near Henry W. Coe State Park east of Morgan Hill. During the huge Lick fire of 2007, Straus begged and pleaded with firefighters - he just had to get up to his land before the fire ravaged his family heirlooms. At stake weren't just personal belongings, but something far more historically precious that did end up burning to a crisp -- 42 pages of calculations scribbled by his father's colleague at Princeton, Albert Einstein. Now Straus, a chemistry professor at San Jose State University, is seeking reimbursement for the irreplaceable papers, appraised at $250,000 to $400,000. He's suing the woman convicted of starting the fire, schoolteacher Margaret Pavese.(Photo by Patrick Tehan/Mercury News)

Dan Straus clears a tree from the road on his property in a remote area near Henry W. Coe State Park east of Morgan Hill. During the huge Lick fire of 2007, Straus begged and pleaded with firefighters - he just had to get up to his land before the fire ravaged his family heirlooms. At stake weren't just personal belongings, but something far more historically precious that did end up burning to a crisp -- 42 pages of calculations scribbled by his father's colleague at Princeton, Albert Einstein. Now Straus, a chemistry professor at San Jose State University, is seeking reimbursement for the irreplaceable papers, appraised at $250,000 to $400,000. He's suing the woman convicted of starting the fire, schoolteacher Margaret Pavese.(Photo by Patrick Tehan/Mercury News)

Dan Straus with the remains of his trailer in a remote area near Henry W. Coe State Park east of Morgan Hill. During the huge Lick fire of 2007, Straus begged and pleaded with firefighters - he just had to get up to his land before the fire ravaged his family heirlooms. At stake weren't just personal belongings, but something far more historically precious that did end up burning to a crisp -- 42 pages of calculations scribbled by his father's colleague at Princeton, Albert Einstein which were in his trailer. Now Straus, a chemistry professor at San Jose State University, is seeking reimbursement for the irreplaceable papers, appraised at $250,000 to $400,000. He's suing the woman convicted of starting the fire, schoolteacher Margaret Pavese.(Photo by Patrick Tehan/Mercury News)

Dan Straus begged and pleaded with the ranger at Henry W. Coe State Park. He was desperate to get up to his cabin before the huge Lick fire of 2007 ravaged family heirlooms.

At stake were not simple personal belongings of sentimental value, but precious items with rich historical significance — 42 pages of calculations jotted down on an envelope and onionskin by Nobel Prize-winning physicist Albert Einstein, his father’s colleague at Princeton. But about five days later, when Straus was finally allowed to return to his 40-acre inholding, the only thing left standing after one of the largest wildfires in Santa Clara County history was an outhouse.

The “fire-safe” box containing the Einstein papers had cracked open “like an egg,” Straus said, exposing the documents to the hungry blaze. “It was like somebody close died,” said Straus, a chemistry professor at San Jose State.

Now Straus, 55, is seeking reimbursement through a lawsuit from the woman convicted of accidentally starting the fire, San Juan Bautista schoolteacher Margaret Pavese. An expert who examined the papers before the fire estimated they were worth $250,000 to $400,000. Pavese’s attorney did not return calls for comment.

The trove came into the family’s possession after Straus’ father, renowned mathematician Ernst Straus, was hand-picked by Einstein in 1944 to be his assistant at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Studies. The two men — both German-born secular Jews who fled the Nazis — worked together through 1948, co-authoring three scientific papers and becoming close friends.

One of the lost “documents” was a formula that Einstein scrawled on the envelope of a letter he received, postmarked “1936,” that he’d put on a stack on his desk nine years earlier, Straus said. “You could even see the grease stains, presumably from a sandwich, on the envelope,” he marveled.

The Lick fire that cremated the papers broke out when Pavese left a 55-gallon metal barrel she was illegally using to burn paper plates unattended. The fire burned 47,760 acres — nearly half the park — and destroyed four residences and 20 outbuildings, according to Cal Fire.

Pavese pleaded no contest last year to one misdemeanor count of failing to exercise reasonable care in the disposal of flammable materials to prevent causing an uncontrolled fire. Deputy District Attorney Cindy Hendrickson said Pavese has completed 250 hours of community service and paid $200,000 in restitution to three fire victims, including about $40,000 to Straus for the loss of his two small cabins, an outbuilding and a trailer.

Erroneous report

About a year before the fire, the Straus family sold a series of letters from the famed author of the theory of relativity to a private collector for $1 million. Ernst Straus died in 1983, and Dan Straus and his brother Paul used much of the proceeds from the sale of the letters to take care of their mother, who had Alzheimer’s and lived with Dan Straus at his San Jose home.

In spring 2007, Dan Straus said, he brought the papers up to his weekend retreat in the heart of Coe park, where he had a solar-powered copier, because it offered a peaceful place, miles down a dirt road, ﻿to sort them. They were still there on Sept. 3, when he was driving back from a backpacking trip near Bear Valley and heard what turned out to be an erroneously reassuring report about the fire that prompted him to drive home instead of to the park retreat to get the papers.

“The radio said the fire was burning west of Henry Coe near Morgan Hill,” Straus recalls. “But what they meant was, it was burning in the park, east of Morgan Hill. I was worried, but I thought I had time.”

After tossing and turning that night for hours, Straus checked his e-mail at 4 a.m. to find a warning message from a park ranger that his place where the rare documents were stored was in the path of the fire. By the time he arrived at the gate, the guard could not let him through because of the risk.

Once he got through and saw the damage, he says, “I didn’t cry over it so much as beat myself up” for not driving up the night before.

Straus initially thought he’d also lost all his copies of the documents. But it turned out that the expert who’d sold the series of letters for the family the year before had actually examined much of the collection, authenticated it and had Dan Straus’ copies. The expert, Howard Rootenberg, who runs a rare book business in Southern California, was able to appraise most of the papers lost in the fire based on his previous review.

Affectionate poem

“Einstein signed a lot of stuff for charity,” Rootenberg said. “If you get something that says ‘Thank you for the invitation to dinner but I can’t come,’ that’s one thing. But if you have something that says, ‘Here’s the formula,’ it’s worth much more.”

Actually recovering damages could be a challenge. The Pavese family owns 400 acres with a lake that may be worth a considerable amount. But the state has filed a separate lawsuit seeking about $16 million to recover the cost of fighting the fire. It’s unclear whether Straus would be first in line in any settlement.

Dan Straus still has one original document given to him as a child. It is a handwritten, original poem Einstein wrote in German congratulating his parents on his birth in 1954. Any poetic artistry is lost in the translation, but the affection Einstein had for his old colleague Ernst Straus shines through in one verse.

Tracey Kaplan is a reporter for the Bay Area News Group based at The Mercury News. A former courts reporter, she is now reporting primarily on consumer issues, and welcomes any tips/suggestions, especially on how to make ends meet in the Bay Area. Watch for a series this summer on her personal solution to the housing crisis -- spending her nest egg on turning a cargo van into what will eventually be her full-time home. For more info, see @itsavanlife on Instagram and our Facebook group, Full House: Inside the Bay Area housing shortage.

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